Tag Archives: color

No, I’m perfectly happy. But quick, close your eyes. What color do you think of when you think of me? I’m guessing it’s blue. Look at my blog header. Look at my featured patterns on the sidebar. I think you can see that blue is one of my favorite colors. Here are projects that I wear all the time. It’s a theme!

There are more, but I think you’ve got the idea. My other favorites are red and purple, which is just red plus blue.

I love knitting with hand-dyed semi-solid yarns; contrasty variegated yarns where I don’t control the colors and where they land give me the willies. The exception to this is the lovely long color change yarns that work so well with entrelac. And because the dyer has already chosen a color palette that works, I don’t have to be afraid of clashing combinations!

Notice a preponderance of blue/purple? I’m a creature of habit! What colors make your heart go pitty-pat? Do you like a monochromatic theme, or are you great at combining color? Combos are not my forte; it’s all trial and error. Someday…

At least according to Pantone! These are the top 10 colors for women’s fashion this spring, as chosen by NY designers. I learned about these at a mini-session with Vogue Knitting editor Trisha Malcolm at TNNA. She gave us these color cards. (You may get a truer reading if you go to the Pantone website.)

The color of the year is honeysuckle, or Pantone 18-2120. Pretty.

What else did we learn? White is the biggest trend for spring. Plan on seeing lots of it, especially with navy, because navy is the new brown. Remember when brown was the new black? We’re so over that. You’ll also see navy with citrus (green or yellow) and honeysuckle.

Other fashion trends for spring: sheer layers, especially lightweight cowls, scarves, and wraps. Less shape: we’ll be seeing comfortable billowy shapes replacing the refined look of fall 2010. Trisha says that the long sleeveless vest will be the “it” garment, and knitters will make it more interesting with embellishments like lace or cables. Sounds good to me.

Here’s the back of the card with the rest of spring’s trends.

And when you’re done with spring? The color for fall is wine. Trisha says that the good news is that wine is a color that looks good on almost all skin tones.

Do you follow fashion colors? I still mostly knit with blue and purple, because I like them. Wine looks good, too. In fact, this reminds me that I should finish my Heather Hoodie. I set it aside last spring when I realized that it wouldn’t be done before the weather got too warm. I’m cold now, so that’s a great incentive to pick it up again, and I can wear it next fall, too, when it’s the very fashion-forward wine color! (Really, it’s called Bing Cherry, but that’s our little secret.)

Instead of a vest, I’m making this with long sleeves. I’m so glad I wrote good notes before setting this project aside! I picked them up at the shoulder, worked a modified drop shoulder sleeve cap, and am knitting them flat down to the wrist. Yes, I could have done it in the round, but I like my 26 inch circular and didn’t want to have to change to dpns part way down. And I like mattress stitch seaming on stockinette.

One more tidbit from TNNA: The Noro rep told me that Silk Garden Lite is coming back this spring. I’m pretty pleased, because that means that my Infinity scarf is no longer designed with a discontinued yarn. I’m feeling so au courant…